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An ode to Bob Dylan, music and God

In honor of Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I wanted to offer some thoughts about the relationship between music and God.

To paraphrase Kant, faith without music is empty and music without faith is blind. Dylan understands this and it is the source of his power and his vision. At a time when popular music is increasingly vulgar and secular and religious music is increasingly banal (except of course for Gospel music), Dylan may be one of the only bridges between truth and beauty in popular culture and this feat alone more than justifies his recent high honor.

The first spiritually significant Dylan song and his best song both make the case for his spiritual and aesthetic greatness.

Here are some verses from his song, "Gotta Serve Somebody":

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You may be an ambassador to England or France

You may like to gamble, you might like to dance

You may be the heavyweight champion of the world

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride

You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side

You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair

You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may call me Terry, you may call me Jimmy

You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy

You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray

You may call me anything but no matter what you say.

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

------

His music refocuses the simple choice of faith. Our lives are either placed in service to a transcendent truth or they are placed in service to a narcissistic lie. We either know that God is bigger than us or we make ourselves into a god. To say that is wonderful, but to sing it is sublime.

His best song (no, there is no debating this) is, "Like a Rolling Stone" which first appeared in his 1965 album, "Highway 61 Revisited."

Rolling Stone magazine, in choosing it as the greatest rock and roll song of all time, revealed that the phrase "like a rolling stone" came from an old Hank Williams country song "Lost Highway," which begins, "I'm a rolling stone, I'm alone and lost/For a life of sin I've paid the cost." The root meaning of the root metaphor of the song is not getting drugs or getting love or getting money. It is a song about the perils of living a life of sin and separation from the truth.

Follow me through some of the song as it informs and indicts us,

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You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hangin' out

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

You said you'd never compromise

With the mystery tramp, but now you realize

He's not selling any alibis

As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes

And ask him do you want to make a deal?

You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat

Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat

Ain't it hard when you discover that

He really wasn't where it's at

After he took from you everything he could steal.

------

These are real truths not because Dylan says so. They are the core critique of deep faith over secular culture that promotes greed over service, self-adornment over self-abnegation and cruelty over charity. The real truth of the song and modern culture and Dylan's best instincts is that without God's love we are indeed all alone.

------

You used to be so amused

At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used

Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel

How does it feel

To be on your own

With no direction home

Like a complete unknown

Like a rolling stone?

So I am reading the 23rd Psalm while listening to Dylan playing loudly in the background, or is it in the foreground. Today it is hard to know the difference.